Monday, January 6, 2014

The Case of the Missing Recovery

Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound
to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic
Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago.

It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those
promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they
are here, somewhere, because the economists said so.

Congress must have seen all those jobs before they went home for
Christmas, because our representatives let extended unemployment
benefits expire for 1.3 million unemployed Americans, who have not yet
met up with those new economy jobs, or even with an old economy job for
that matter.

By letting extended unemployment benefits expire, Congress figures that
they saved 1.3 million Americans from becoming lifelong bums of the
nanny state and living off the public purse. After all, who do those
unemployed Americans think they are? A bank too big to fail? The
military-security complex? Israel?